Jim Kutzner

As broadcasters look for ways to reinvent their businesses,one of this year’s Technology Leader Award winners isplaying a central role in two key initiatives that couldshape the future of television.

Jim Kutzner is helping drive standards and practicesfor mobile video delivery and the mobile DTV emergencyalert system. The former revolves around the idea thatbroadcast TV’s future lies in mobility—using part of theexisting broadcast spectrum to deliver video not only tothe home but also to smartphones, tablets and even cars.

Kutzner was an early proponent of mobile digital-TVbroadcasts and has been working with the Open MobileVideo Coalition (OMVC) since its launch in 2007. Heis vice-chair of the OMVC Technology Advisory Group.

OMVC’s work played a key role in the approval of theA/153 ATSC Mobile-DTV Standard in October 2009 bythe Advanced Television Systems Committee (ASTC). Twoother industry consortia, the Mobile Content Venture andthe Mobile500 Alliance, are planning to use that standardto launch mobile digital TV services this year.

Kutzner has also been working with three public TVstations to test the use of mobile-DTV signals to provideemergency alerts. As part of that effort, cofounded by LGand the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the team hasalso been putting together suggestions for changing theATSC mobile DTV standard to better handle those alerts.

Similar alerts were critical in conveying vital informationin Japan during last year’s devastating earthquake andtsunami, and the development of mobile-DTV alertingtechnologies in the U.S. could encourage more consumersand stations to adopt mobile-DTV technologies.

Kutzner has been pivotal in the creation of ATSC 3.0,an ambitious effort to create a next-generation standard fordigital broadcasting. The work on ATSC 3.0 will take yearsto complete and raises a number of thorny issues, includingthe type of business models that broadcasters mightwant to pursue in the future. Kutzner’s ATSC 3.0 industrycommittee will have to develop technologies to enablethose business models and, at the same time, come upwith a standard that is financially feasible to implement.

That requirement is particularly important becauseATSC 3.0 won’t be compatible with the ATSC 1.0 currentlybeing used, or the upcoming 2.0 version. While thiswill allow the next-generation standard to enable a numberof new businesses, it will also require major changes inbroadcast infrastructures and will have to deal with whateverregulatory changes are made to broadcast spectrum.

“To make this work we will have to meld the technology,business and regulatory environments,” Kutzner says. “Butbecause of the acceleration of technology, we can’t standstill. If the broadcast industry wants to survive the growingcompetition and remain relevant, we need to change.”

Kutzner comes to this work from decades of broadcastengineering experience, beginning in 1973 at Twin CitiesPublic Television (KTCA/KTCI-TV). He worked at PBSfrom 1990 to 1993 and then rejoined the organizationfull time in 2001, holding the chief engineer title from2003 to 2010, when he assumed his current position.

He has been active on industry committees for newstandards and technologies since the early 1990s. “I’vealways been looking forward with technology,” Kutznersays. “Even when I started in operations in the 1970s,I was always the guy who was building something ordesigning something.”